You know the old saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words”?

But what about the thousand words?

What is beyond, behind, beside, within this snapshot?

I happened upon this old boat at Cape Vincent, up in the corner of New York State where the Saint Lawrence and Lake Ontario meet. I took this photo during the first summer of the seemingly eternal Pandemic. My husband and I rented a cottage along Lake Ontario, not far from Fort Drum, where my daughter and her family were stationed. During that summer, soldiers and their families living on Fort Drum were not allowed to travel very far from the base. Since our daughter couldn’t come to see us, we went and spent time near her. That’s part of our story.

During our stay, we took a day trip and stopped at The Coal Docks Restaurant along the St Lawrence Seaway, and we ate outside on the patio, which is how I happened to notice this beautiful old weathered boat, pulled up from the water, and lit by the setting sun. So there was another story going on behind the photographer and that was of the scene across the street of a restaurant, and an owner who was trying to stay afloat, to adapt to a Pandemic by providing outside seating, and a lovely waitress, and delicious food, and some moments of normalcy in crazy times.

What you can’t see in the photo is a little mink that kept popping up along the shoreline. I couldn’t capture the mink and the boat at the same time. But he or she was there just out of sight of the photo, and I wonder what was their story? Age? Family? Adventures? Misadventures?

There is also the old boat itself. How many hundreds of stories does it hold? Where? What? Why? Who? How? When? I wish I knew even one of them, but I don’t. Its past, its life, so to speak, is a mystery to me. Maybe that’s why I liked it so much.

What is in this photo then?

It’s a mystery boat with untold hidden stories. In sum, it’s a treasure.